Floor machines are a pervasive and well-established appliance for commercial and residential floor care. Floor machines are commonly used, for example, for cleaning, polishing, stripping, and sanding floor surfaces. A variety of floor machine configurations are available to suit the needs of a particular task.
FIG. 1 is a typical floor machine 10 that may be used for treating a floor surface 12. The floor machine 10 includes a motor 14 mounted on a housing 16. A floor treatment device 18 is positioned below the housing 16 and coupled to the motor 14. The floor treatment device 18 is selected depending on the job that is to be performed, and may include, for example, a polishing pad, a stripping pad, a brush, a sand screen, a sanding disk, or other variety of floor treatment device. The floor machine 10 also includes a handle 20 attached to the housing 16. Control grips 22 are located on the handle 20 distant from the housing 16. One commercially-available floor machine of this type is the Low Boy.RTM. model floor machine available from the Oreck Corporation of New Orleans, La.
In operation, a user 24 grips the control grips 22 of the handle 20 and starts the motor 14 by squeezing one of the control grips 22. The motor 14 rotates the floor treatment device 18 causing the floor treatment device 18 to perform the desired cleaning, polishing, sanding, or other desired operation on the floor surface 12. The floor treatment device 18 is guided over the floor surface 22 by the user 24 using the handle 20.
In some cases, such as during sanding of wooden floors, the operation of the floor treatment device 18 on the floor surface 12 produces a large amount of particulates 26, such as wood dust. In such a case, a vacuum 30 may be used in conjunction with the floor machine 10 a shown in FIG. 1. The vacuum 10 includes a canister 34 that is coupled to the housing 16 of the floor machine 10 by a vacuum hose 32. In this embodiment, the canister 34 is worn as a "backpack" by the user 24. Alternately, the canister 34 may be mounted on wheels that roll on the floor surface 12, or other suitable vacuum embodiments may be used. One backpack-style vacuum that may be used for this purpose is the Oreck Super Deluxe Compact Canister Vacuum available from the Oreck Corporation of New Orleans, La.
In operation, the floor machine 10 is engaged with the floor surface 12 and operated as described above. The particulates 26 (e.g dirt, debris, wood dust, used floor sealing or floor covering material, etc.) produced by the action of the floor treatment device 18 are lifted from the floor surface 12 into the vacuum hose 32 and are collected in the canister 34. The particulates 26 picked up by the vacuum hose 32 are then stored within the canister 34 for later disposal.
Although desirable results have been achieved using the prior art floor machine 10 and vacuum 30, certain drawbacks exist. For example, because the vacuum hose 32 is mounted in the housing 16, the suction generated by the vacuum 30 is spaced apart from the floor surface 12 by atleast the height of the floor treatment device 18. At this distance, the suction may not be great enough to lift the particulates 26 from the floor surface 12, particularly for those particulates 26 which may collect in cracks or along edges of the floor surface 12.
Also, because the particulates 26 exit randomly from beneath the floor treatment device 18 all around its circumference, the particulates 26 may avoid the suction from the vacuum hose 32 and not be drawn into the canister 34. The particulates 26 that do not exit from beneath the floor treatment device 18 near the vacuum hose 32 may remain on the floor surface 12 or may become airborne. Such airborne particulates 28 may require the use of air filtering devices for capture and removal, adding to the time and expense of the floor treatment operation.